It took just 90 minutes for fire to race up 20 storeys of the Grenfell Tower in June 2017, killing 72 people. Last month, a cigarette sparked a blaze that quickly jumped five floors of Melbourne’s Neo200 building. Both buildings — and plenty of others like them — were covered in aluminium composite cladding. It’s
Posted May 28, 2019 05:07:41 Other states would love to have the problems Victoria does. Treasurer Tim Pallas delayed the state budget so it would not cause problems for the Labor Party’s tilt at the federal election. When the party lost, it wiped out a $2 billion promise to fund a half-finished train tunnel. Earlier,
Updated May 26, 2019 10:24:29 Photo: Terry Dalgliesh’s farm near Brigalow, 13 kilometres from the contaminated Linc Energy site. (ABC News: Nathan Morris) Related Story: Record $4.5 million fine for serious environmental harm at Linc Energy plant Related Story: Gas company ‘knew it was causing damage but allowed it to continue’ The risk of spreading
Posted May 25, 2019 07:03:02 Photo: Corinna Willowson’s house is one of just two dozen hempcrete homes in the country. (ABC: Tim Lee) Hemp, one of the planet’s most misunderstood plants, is finally shedding its undeserved bad rap. Hemp is also known as cannabis, and cannabis is generally and mistakenly regarded as a narcotic. Since
Posted May 22, 2019 12:33:01 There appears to be no end in sight for the grinding slowdown in the Australian construction industry, with another sharp fall in the value of work done in the first three months of the year. In seasonally adjusted terms, the value of work completed fell by 1.9 per cent to
Posted May 22, 2019 06:51:47 Photo: A map of the site for the proposed Darwin water park. (Supplied) Thousands of cubic metres of construction waste was illegally buried on Darwin harbour’s foreshore, including some which was allegedly dumped on neighbouring government land — the proposed site of the water theme park — the Northern Territory’s
Posted May 22, 2019 00:02:23 Photo: Meriton founder Harry Triguboff has at times been Australia’s richest man. Billionaire apartment developer Harry Triguboff could not hide his delight at the prospect of an interest rate cut in June and the re-elected Morrison Government’s planned help for first home buyers. Key points: Harry Triguboff says he expects
Posted May 19, 2019 08:46:25 United States diplomats have warned commercial airliners flying over the Persian Gulf risk being targeted by “miscalculation or misidentification” from the Iranian military amid heightened tensions between the Islamic Republic and the US, even as both Washington and Tehran say they do not seek war. Key points: The diplomatic warning
Posted May 17, 2019 13:36:13 Photo: The development was planned as part of the revival of Bowden, which is minutes from Adelaide’s CBD. (Hughes PR) A $40 million property development in Adelaide — which was spruiked as a “new benchmark for energy and sustainability” — has been scrapped after apartments sat on the market for
Posted May 17, 2019 05:02:55 Australians are reeling from electricity prices that have soared more than 130 per cent since 2015. Among the reasons for the rocket-rise: profiteering by wholesalers and the so-called ‘gold-plating’ of the electricity distribution network. But the real culprit? Gas. Key points: Analysts say gas prices determine the marginal cost of
